A man I will never know

“For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.”

Khader Adnan a name I have seen widely on my twitter time line but scarcely anywhere else. A man held under administrative detention, a man ignored by the media outlets – illegally detained and trying to live while dying to do so.

Khader Adnan is a 33 year old father of two who was arrested after having his (family) home raided by Israeli occupation forces; all this in the midst of the night. He’s been tortured and his health is deteriorating according to his wife and lawyers. He’s one of many prisoners in Israeli jails under administrative detention. I simply couldn’t believe that a human being was willing to die in order to show the injustice that is and no-one bats an eye lid. It’s been 57 days and counting yet all I here is an ashamingly deafening silence from activists and media outlets alike.

I’ve followed the hunger strike from the very early days and have been astonished with the lack of people speaking up. Astonished I say because when there were other political prisoners held, they were many quick to speak up, astonished because they judged and gave their verdict – to not acknowledge.

The point of the matter is not that Khader Adnan is Palestinian or that he’s reportedly believed to be a part of Islamic Jihad. The simple fact of the matter that the inexcusable en masse have overlooked is that Khader is 1.Human 2.Innocent 3.Illegally detained.

I couldn’t fully comprehend the individual acts of so called ‘activists’ the same ones that defended Maikel Nabeel amongst others so blindly yet uttered nothing when it came to Khader. Some reading this might jump to conclusions and defend others actions and explain why it was necessary these prisoners were supported. Unfortunately if you are one of those people; you’re missing my point. This post is not to discuss other prisoners ‘worthiness’ or whether it was ‘right’ to support them. If you’ve read the first line of this post you’d know my views on the matter…No my point is why the silence on Palestinian prisoners? Why the silence when it comes to Khader Adnan? What is it about Israel’s actions and violations that some still find hard to condemn?

I couldn’t comprehend for a lot of reasons because most people have overlooked willingly or unwillingly the injustice that the likes of Khader Adnan suffer. How can you not defend a man held for the eight time under administrative detention? How can any justify the trauma caused to Khader Adnan’s daughters or his pregnant wife? How can anyone justify raiding a family home at 3 am?

Dying to live for dignity

What makes a man challenge the fact of being a prisoner in such a way? Is it the torture? Or the uncertainty that looms when held as an administrative detainee? Is it pure frustration? In Khader Adnan’s letter he states “I am defending my dignity and my people’s dignity and not doing this in vain” Khader Adnan looks set to fight regardless with the only thing he still can – his empty stomach.

I support Khader because it’s the right of every human being to be able to live and die with dignity. I support Khader because if you take away all the layers of why so many others have ignored he is an admirable human being. As I found out about Khader’s health deteriorating I felt and still do feel helpless thousands of miles away and all I can do is follow the news via blogs and the few posts that do emerge. While the world yet again ignores; Palestinians’ are being prosecuted – their only crime being Palestinian.

Today I write for a man I will never know, I simply write for a human being deprived of his simplest rights and dying to live.